The present disclosure relates to heat removal systems, and more particularly to an improved input output (I/O) controller to dynamically remove heat generated by an information handling system (‘IHS’).
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to acquire, process and store information. One option available to users is an IHS. The IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, IHS may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, entertainment, and/or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Most computer systems have built in cooling systems such as fans, blowers, heat sinks and similar others to remove heat generated by the electronic components. The thermal load on the cooling systems may vary depending on a number of factors including number of printed circuit boards or cards, energy consumption per card, ambient temperature and the like. Large computer system applications such as networked storage systems deploying Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) technology and server clusters deploying hundreds of blade servers often house the electronic cards in a compact chassis and several rack mounted chassis may be housed in a cabinet. It is common to use fans/blowers and air conditioning units to remove the heat generated, thereby maintaining the temperature of the cards, the chassis and the cabinets within allowable limits.
Some cards such as a RAID controller may have an on board rechargeable battery. The purpose of the battery is to retain memory through a power loss. Charging and/or discharging of the battery typically utilizes a large amount of current, thereby generating a large amount of heat that may be local to the RAID controller and/or the battery. The localized heat often causes the temperature of the RAID controller card and/or the battery to exceed the allowable limits and potentially create a faulty operating condition.
Presently, many of the fans/blowers may be adjusted to operate under the worst case thermal load. In computer systems that support a large number of cards that may or may not have local heat sources such as the battery, the fans or blowers may be configured to operate at the rated or maximum speed. As a result, the cooling capacity may be greater than necessary and yet may be inadequate to accommodate localized heating. This may result in unnecessary power consumption, may increase acoustical noise level, may reduce the expected service life of the associated fans or blowers, and may potentially result in system downtime due to the failure of components.
Thus, there is an existing need to improve the on-demand removal of heat generated by an IHS; to develop tools and techniques that are adaptable for cooling components of the IHS; and to selectively and dynamically cool components included in an IHS, absent the disadvantages found in the prior techniques discussed above.